The podcast about music journalism & criticism

Before you pipe in with cries of “they always look like morons,” look at things from an outside the blogosphere perspective.

First the prosecution was baffled by the site’s open-source concept, uable to comprehend why a business wasn’t a for-profit hierarchy with a single person where the buck stopped. Not wanting to lose such an important case, the prosecution quickly altered the charges in order to better ensure a conviction. Then while testifying today the head of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries – the international version of the RIAA and CRIA – was insistent that every song downloaded, like ever, represented a lost sale for the record industry.

Obviously there’s a segment of us who already believe – with good reason – that the record industry has basically been out to lunch for the past decade. But think about what this would look like to an outsider; even my mom understands these basic online concepts. The record industry has been on a campaign for five years now, suing all over the place (though they say they’re now changing tactics), trying to convince the general public that downloading is a crime (which it is) and that it’s in the public interest to stop it. So far, reaction in the general public has been little more than a shrug of the shoulders. Something tells me that being outsmarted by a group of Swedish anarchists isn’t going to help their cause.